In a world without God...

[Doubting Thomas]

I didn't even consider critically examining my faith until the later half of my 20's. And it took me a good long while about 5-6 years before I could really reason it out well enough to convince myself. It was really unintentional. If you had told the 25 year old me I'd be an atheist at 35 I would have been highly offended.

I hear about former Christians deconverting in like a month or less. I don't see how that's possible. It was too firmly entrenched in me.

Sounds like my life. I was baptized as a baby which is the way Catholics do it, but I was firmly entrenched into believing in God & Jesus. Like you, if you'd told the 25 year old me that I'd be an atheist in 10 years, I wouldn't have believed you and probably would have told you to fuck off.

But it did happen, but not overnight. I think it took chiseling my faith away little by little until I finally reached an epiphany and realized that I had been lying to myself and things made much more sense when you look at the world with a godless view.

---

Actually, on another, now defunct atheism board, I posed that question to a fundie Christian and he actually admitted that he would kill someone if God told him to.

That is unsettling

Yes, it definitely was. Scary to think that the only thing keeping a delusional person from killing someone is that they just hadn't had that particular delusion yet.

[Silver]

Yes, it definitely was. Scary to think that the only thing keeping a delusional person from killing someone is that they just hadn't had that particular delusion yet.

I actually touch upon that in the trilogy I am writing. I largely incorporate religion into the fictional series. I have already written the first two books and I am working on the third. A new idea just came to me regarding the third book the other day when I was working out at the gym, and it will be a doozy to my readers.

[Ryantology]

A copy of a Copy in any honest person's language is a fake.

What does that make the Bible you read every day, which is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a tale told word-of-mouth for centuries after it was taken from neighboring cultures and modified? And that's probably being extremely generous.

Ah, no.
When I first bent that knee and God slowly began to reveal himself to me and I began to understand the difference between the God of the bible and the God of my given denomination I was dumb founded. He was not who i though Him to be. Which is why i believe we are made to kneel before God and allow Him to lift us up.

You knelt before you knew, and you confirmed your own bias.

Be honest, you have been reading my post long enough to have seen at least 1 thing you did not know about God that I have been able to back scripturally. I was not raised in the church. None of what I share is passed down by my father or mother or by any church. These things were given to me to share. I formed a picture of God different than the one being taught by the church i was attending.

You invented your own version of God rather than having had one invented for you, as I did. That doesn't really change the invented nature of your god.

It got to the point where I had to choose between my church and how i chose to honor God (and my wife) I choose my God and my wife. It has taken 10 years to find another church. One who teaches from the pulpit things I had only every heard through my personal study.

It took you ten years to find a church which taught a version of Christianity which confirmed your bias.

I say all of this to say that i was not ready to worship a given picture of God. To truly bend that knee is to throw everything away, including everything you learned at church, and allow him to fill in the blanks.

Still do not see a single element of this story that makes it compelling.

If you can do this you will begin to see a contrast between the God of the bible and every other incarnation of God people may have. If you choose the God of the bible you will be given knoweledge and wisdom of God that exceeds anything you could possiably know. What's more, your will be given revelation first, and then whole passages and chapters will come together to reinforce the picture of God you have been given.

I will consider a relationship with God when he makes his presence obvious and impossible to deny or be interpreted as anything but what he is. Your standards of what constitutes knowledge are poor enough to convince you to dedicate your life to a runaway fantasy. Again, I don't trust my own senses as much as you do, which is ironic considering which of us places more value upon the material world.

For how many times have you heard someone preach about the nature of God and take a verse from here and pair it with one verse from there and tie it all together with some random bit for the psalms or some obscure verse from revelations?

You do it pretty much every day.

God does not hide Himself that way. God in hidded in Plain sight, meaning Chapter long passages and whole books written to describe a precept like freedom from the Law.

The creator of the universe should not hide from me if he wants me to think he is anything more than words in a book. He must not have made me stupid enough to find that acceptable.

The God of the bible is not the god you think Him to be. If you bend that knee and will be faithful to what He gives you you will see a driving force in your life that is counter-intuitive to what or how you think things should work. That's God. Not this omni max crap some monk put together 1500 years ago.

The God of the bible is a reprehensible character I would never worship even if it did exist. I would refuse him out of principle and respect for the human race.

Your confusing religions of man with the God of the bible. God is only interested in giving you an oppertunity to choose Him. What you do with that oppertunity is on you.

Beings invisible to me are giving me no opportunities. He needs to manifest as he is claimed to have done in the Old Testament, at the very least.

There is no guess work here. God told us He put an imprint of Himself on every mans heart. (Even minnie, that's why he argues so) and if we simply take what is given and apply it to A/S/K as we have been told the flood gates will be opened.

Again, I need more than that. What you say God has given is insufficient.

Who's purpose yours or His?

Is it not his purpose to establish a meaningful relationship with men who love him heart and soul? He is more powerful and capable than I am. It is upon him to make the effort. Even if I didn't A/S/K precisely according to scripture, could he not tell that my heart was genuine? There was a period of time when I really wanted what you have, wanted it as much as I've ever wanted anything. If your God is real, then all I got was "too bad". Not a single sign, hint, or even subtle encouragement. Just silence.

What if His purpose is not to amass the following you think he needs.
What if the purpose of this life is to provide a place where we can make a choice about where we want to spend eternity, and not blinded by the glory of God or completely mortified by the reality of Hell?

How can you make a choice about where you want to spend eternity without considering the rewards of heaven and the horrors of hell, when those rewards and horrors are all that defines the difference between the two? If God wanted man to make a choice about him without considering those things, he should have never made the promises and threats. He should have simply invited you to accept him, if you wanted, with no punishment for saying no and no reward for saying yes, other than the pleasure of his company and presence in your life. Heaven and Hell make it impossible to make that choice without poisoning the well with personal considerations. Does that not make sense?

Or, are the promises of heaven and hell just a trick to weed out everyone who would consider the ramifications of either so that can eliminate them from consideration (as they are thinking of themselves and their own fates more than of God)?

In this life we are completely free to make the choice to live for self or live for God. If we want to know God and know why we should Live for him God has left us a way that we can know. The only thing is we must follow His instructions in order to receive what He has promised.

I never needed promises. Even as a Christian, I never gave much thought to the afterlife (I was in my early 20s, who does think much about death in their 20s?). I can say, honestly, that I was not motivated by considerations of the afterlife as much as most Christians I know. The church I attended most spoke a lot more of the here and now, the companionship and the guidance in this life, what I was missing and what I needed. And, what I never ended up getting. You may find it difficult to believe any of this because of my attitude, but the reason I have such an attitude is because, whether or not I did it right, I did it with honest intentions, and I got nothing. So, either intentions mean less to God than following precise instructions, or there's no one on the other end of the line.

This is untrue. I have asked truly asked and questioned absolutly every single aspect of God I could think of, and of eternity to the reality of Hell and why it was such a bad thing. What I learned? First and foremost dont ask God what you really do not need the answers too. and second Not questioning God is a religion thing. God is open to question, just understand most of the answers come through harsh life experiences... (Per Lot, and me not that I have suffered as lot has suffered or for the same reasons.)

I consider it up to me to decide what answers I need and which I do not. And, if God is open to questions, why did he not answer mine in a way he knew I would need them answered?

You do not know how much strength it takes to completely submit do you? You know the rebellion you feel? Now Imagine what it would take to over come it with all of your factulities intact. Then imagine what it would take to maintain that submission for life. The strength needed there is far above and beyond what most if not all are capiable of.

It takes no strength to submit. Slaves submit.

Questions are not discouraged to the God of the bible (Look at all the stuff the deciples asked over and over again. Yes Jesus pointed to faith several times as the reason something did not work right, but the question it self was never rebuked.

My only question is the most important one: why does the infinitely-powerful creator of all things feel the need to hide himself from his creation?

If you ask God a question He will carve an answer on your Heart in such a way as to know the answer came from God. This often times is a painful experience if you have a hard heart. Or you can just ask someone who has asked your question (but the assureances you get are seldom on par with what you get when God answers your question directly.)

Perhaps my atheism is the answer he carved on my heart. As irrational as so many aspects of your god are, maybe your god answered my question with "I never existed".

[orogenicman]

So your saying in my own thread I am not to ask a follow up?
As in:
"Why cant a world with God look exactly like the one we have?"

Hypothetically, it can. But then, that would imply that your god is a sadistic, genocidal sociopath, one who is not omnipotent, nor omniscient, not immortal, not loving, not caring, nor even very intelligent. I mean, I ask you, who in their right mind puts an entertainment center right next to a sewer? The fact is that religion exists because man never got over the emotional need for an angry alpha male to control his life.

Curiosity is not an emotion. Curiosity can induce emotions. Emotion is defines as: a conscious mental reaction (as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emotion.

Again curiosity can lead to an emotional response but is not one in of itself.

Hogwash. Curiosity is an eager desire to know; inquisitiveness. The term can also be used to denote the behavior itself being caused by the emotion of curiosity. As this emotion represents a thirst for knowledge, curiosity is a major driving force behind scientific research and other disciplines of human study.

Einstein once said:

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."

Red Herring. For this has nothing to do with envoking emotion to sell a very specific world view.

Oh my god! You apparently see Delvian vipers behind every rock. You should seek a mental health professional ASAP, because, damn. Are you sure you want to stick with that bullshit response?

I question the Idea of an all mercify God simply because the bible never makes that Claim. Matter of fact the bible say the oppsite, for everyone except those who seek attonement for their sins.

For those who seek attonement they will find infinate mercy, for those who do no will have Hell to pay.

Erm, what? You say that you question the idea of an all merciful god and then tell us that he is merciful? Do you read any of this shit before you post it?

Again i call into question any "Intelectual disipline" that requires emotion as it primary driver to legitmacy.

Then you know nothing of the human intellect and what drives people to do what they do.

Have you ever been to the Smithsonian in DC? After you get past the impressive displays they have a windowed office (either mocked up or real) where they have an example of a fractured and splintered bone, and an artist/sculptor literally makes what he thinks it would look like out of clay. from there a mold is made and an example is either poured from plaster or fiberglass. A copy of a Copy in any honest person's language is a fake.

Yes I have. I have also been in some of the warehouses of the National Museum where they store artifacts and fossils as well as many other natural history items. When a fossil is submitted to the National museum, it is stored for safekeeping and, upon written request by relevant professionals, that fossil can be examined in its entirety for comparison with other fossils, or used for specific scientific studies. These fossils have a very high scientific value and are almost never placed on public display. But since the public wants to see dioramas containing various famous fossils, reproductions are created and placed on display for public viewing. You can call them whatever you choose to call them, but there is nothing fake about them. They are anatomically correct. And Drich, I advise you to take a comparative anatomy course sometime. It might open up your eyes as to how we understand and know how these fossils go together, what is missing and what is not, and even more importantly, how to reproduce the missing segments.

Yes, many are composites of more than one animal, but so fucking what? Forensic anthropologists create composites skulls from partials in order that they can identify an individual victims of a crime. And they do this with a high degree of success. It is a valid way of creating facsimiles of the actual specimen. And Drich, no one is fooling anyone on this point. Everyone knows that they are models. They aren't hiding the fact. Why do you have a problem with this?

You do know we do not have a complete single source stegasaurus right? Every complete example comes from anywhere between 30 to 80 different seperate dig sites. and even then there are only a hand full of examples on the planet.

So what? At least you admit that they existed, right?

How do we know they put the pieces together right? How do we know these animals were not "Kit bashed" from 30 different animals? We don't it's ALL FAITH to say this is what a stegasarus looks like. There is even more faith involved to say the fake one they have at the smithsonian is a true repersentation of what one looks like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stegosaurus

For the same reason I know that the incomplete humpback whale skeleton I worked to complete in the late 1980s at the Louisville Science Center was accurate. Comparative anatomy, and forensic analyses. If you believe that the stegosaurus is not accurately portrayed, I encourage you to write a paper on the subject and get it published in a peer reviewed scientific publication. I wish you good luck in that endeavor.

What they have on display are trays of actual bones, and fake/reproductions of standing models compiled of hand made peices cast from several different skeletons. Just like everyone else.
http://www.museumoftherockies.org/LinkCl...06&mid=562
They compare this collection with the one in DC. Meaning it is possiable as good.

I have no idea what that last sentence means, but so what? What do you expect them to do?

Maybe your so use to being lead around by your emotions to discern truth, you can not recognise truth anymore.

With all due respect, I'm not the one infatuated with a single book over 35 million others to the point where my entire life is based on it.

We are the only two talking about dinosaurs anymore. That says the smart people want more information before the foolishly follow the same old standard arguement into the ground. Even if your 'education' will not allow you to think outside the box it has placed you in does not mean all the other members of this site agree with you.

See, this is where I am supposed to apologize for having a well-rounded education and a lifetime of scientific/field experience. Perhaps it is you who should apologize for NOT having such an education while making claims that you cannot substantiate due to lack of said education and experience.

Tell you what, If the Lord lightens my load and provides the funds i will take you up on your offer. I will be bringing a 2 friends and my wife (Mr Smith and Mr Wesson.)

No guns allowed. Sorry, that is not negotiable. You can bring your cahones, that is, assuming that you have a pair.

Whether I go or do not go my position does not change.

I don't expect you to. But if you do come, hold that thought...

For the bible does not date itself. Meaning there is no born on date so the Earth does not have to be 5K years old. So, you can show me something with a trillion year old born on date and it changes nothing.

Oh, I completely concur that the Bible is not nor should it be used as a science book. As for whether or not our little field trip will change anything, hold that thought...

So, given my responses, Drich, let's summarize the reasons you refuse to take a field geology excursion with me, and possibly others:

1) I think it wise to not go on a field trip with someone who does not know the difference between a resin mock up and actual fossilized remains

2) Butt rape by some creepy rock guy.

Are there any other reasons anyone here can think of why he would not want to see real fossils in the field, in-situ? Any at all?

Drich. Are you ready to reveal the REAL reason why you are afraid to take a field trip to learn something about geology first hand?

Dont forget the primary reason. It will do nothing to change my world view. The bible does not Say the Earth has to be XXXX years old. people/religions do.

Then you have nothing to lose (and perhaps something to gain).

---

For someone who has yielded his abilty to learn and think to God I've had some pretty strong arguements that have all but stopped the dinosaur arguement as proof of their being no God.

No one was trying to use dinosaurs to disprove the existence of god. Their point was about evolution, not about the existence of your sky daddy.

-or-

Maybe as it is as you said, because i have yield my thought and critical thinking to God, it is God who is able to use me to take apart your arguements.

Eitherway your assessment is an empty appeal to proablity (another logical fallacy) which is making me wonder if your publication is a self publication.

What arguments of mine do you believe you have dissembled? Drich, the Journal of Invertebrate Paleontology is not a "self publication", but I smile at the compliment.

[Drich]

I didn't even consider critically examining my faith until the later half of my 20's. And it took me a good long while about 5-6 years before I could really reason it out well enough to convince myself. It was really unintentional. If you had told the 25 year old me I'd be an atheist at 35 I would have been highly offended.

I hear about former Christians deconverting in like a month or less. I don't see how that's possible. It was too firmly entrenched in me.

Sounds like my life. I was baptized as a baby which is the way Catholics do it, but I was firmly entrenched into believing in God & Jesus. Like you, if you'd told the 25 year old me that I'd be an atheist in 10 years, I wouldn't have believed you and probably would have told you to fuck off.

But it did happen, but not overnight. I think it took chiseling my faith away little by little until I finally reached an epiphany and realized that I had been lying to myself and things made much more sense when you look at the world with a godless view.

I guess you know now what it is to build your house upon the sand.

[Rahul]

I guess you know now what it is to build your house upon the sand.

Pbbht. Mine was built on the rock. The rock crumbled though due to the harsh tremors of reality.

[Minimalist]

Actually, on another, now defunct atheism board, I posed that question to a fundie Christian and he actually admitted that he would kill someone if God told him to.

That is unsettling

Errr....it's called "history." From the account of pope Urban II's speech at Clermont by Robert the Monk...(initiating the Crusades.)

From the confines of Jerusalem and from the city of Constantinople a grievous report has gone forth and has -repeatedly been brought to our ears; namely, that a race from the kingdom of the Persians, an accursed race, a race wholly alienated from God, `a generation that set not their heart aright and whose spirit was not steadfast with God,' violently invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by pillage and fire. They have led away ap art of the captives into their own country, and a part have they have killed by cruel tortures. They have either destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of their own religion. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanness....The kingdom of the Greeks is now dismembered by them and has been deprived of territory so vast in extent that it could be traversed in two months' time.

"On whom, therefore, is the labor of avenging these wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you, you upon whom, above all other nations, God has conferred remarkable glory in arms, great courage, bodily activity, and strength to humble the heads of those who resist you ? Let the deeds of your ancestors encourage you and incite your minds to manly achievements:-the greatness of King Charlemagne, and of his son Louis, and of your other monarchs, who have destroyed the kingdoms of the Turks and have extended the sway of Church over lands previously possessed by the pagan. Let the holy sepulcher of our Lord and Saviour, which is possessed by unclean nations, especially arouse you, and the holy places which are now treated, with ignominy and irreverently polluted with the filth of the unclean. Oh, most valiant soldiers and descendants of invincible ancestors, do not degenerate; our progenitors., but recall the valor of your progenitors.

By the way, Jerusalem had been muslim for 4 centuries by the time Urban got around to recognizing the crisis.

[Mister Agenda]

I can't believe the ruler of the universe would be behind a mind-game like this: I'll let you know I'm real if you believe in me, submit to me, and worship me based on what a bunch of Iron Age priests wrote down thousands of years ago.

Not a mind game. When someone of true power and authority in our soceity tells you to do XYZ if you want 123, then one does XYZ if He wants 123. Like If I was the little old lady who won that 600 million dollar power ball jackpot and I told you i will give you 100 million dollars if you washed my car with yellow joy liquid soap, rinsed it with bottled water and waxed it with liquid glass, would you wash and wax my car your way? Or would you do it per my instructions to make sure you got what I was offering?

If you would do this (bend your knee to me) for something as trivial as a 100 million dollars, then why would you expect to have God bend his knee before you to give you eternal life?

After all what does it profit a man if he were to loose his soul?

Argument from big stakes.

In your example, you're including in your assumptions that I'm aware that you have the money to pay me, which is the crucial difference between expecting someone to bend their knee to someone you claim exists and washing the car of a real person who really has 600 million dollars.

If a little old lady just told me she had 600 million dollars and would give me a 100 million for washing her car, I'd assume she was demented. I might still wash her car out of pity, not figuring I'll get anything for it.

Here's a better analogy: I'm walking down the sidewalk. You stop me and tell me if I wash this car in a driveway, the little old lady it belongs to has 600 million dollars and will give me 100 million dollars of her fortune.

I keep walking, maybe faster. Note that not only is the offer itself insane, even if the rich little old lady is real, it's insane to expect me to take your word for it or for me to lift a finger to find out if you're legit.

[Drich]

A copy of a Copy in any honest person's language is a fake.

What does that make the Bible you read every day, which is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a tale told word-of-mouth for centuries after it was taken from neighboring cultures and modified? And that's probably being extremely generous.

Do you not know how the bible is translated? Remember the thread we had on the 4th century bible just a week or so ago? If you bothered to follow my link it list each and every difference between that bible and the one we use. Contextually they are identical. Remember the bible was compiled in the 3rd century so we have a span of less than 100 years seperating the first hand written compilation, to the one that supports what we read today.

You knelt before you knew, and you confirmed your own bias.

If I submitted before my Idea of God, but found out that my idea of God was wrong and changed my idea of God to fit the one I was being shown how does that change signify bias?

You invented your own version of God rather than having had one invented for you, as I did. That doesn't really change the invented nature of your god.

One that just so happens to turn it's back on conventional knoweledge of God and favors a biblical picture.

It took you ten years to find a church which taught a version of Christianity which confirmed your bias.

I needed 10 years in the wilderness (much like Paul spent before he started his ministry) before I could start my work with them. I needed to know God before I could teach God.
The fact that we teach the same picture of God without our paths ever crossing before, Speaks to the desire and dedication that both the church and I have to repersent the God of the bible.

Still do not see a single element of this story that makes it compelling.

Even if you did you would find a reason to explain it away so you would not be forced to act or feel bad for not acting.

I will consider a relationship with God when he makes his presence obvious and impossible to deny or be interpreted as anything but what he is.

At that point it will be too late. For Christ tells us of that day when every knee will bow and every toungue will confess that Christ is Lord. But again God's offer will have expired.

Your standards of what constitutes knowledge are poor enough to convince you to dedicate your life to a runaway fantasy. Again, I don't trust my own senses as much as you do, which is ironic considering which of us places more value upon the material world.

How can one say he can not trust himself to gather his own data from his own senses if he is not brain washed to only receive data and understanding if it does not first pass through the filter of his peers and what they think is knoweledge?

The creator of the universe should not hide from me if he wants me to think he is anything more than words in a book. He must not have made me stupid enough to find that acceptable.

Your pride in your peer approved education has identified Humility before God as 'stupidity.' No God did not make you stupid... You can finish that line of thought on your own.

The God of the bible is a reprehensible character I would never worship even if it did exist. I would refuse him out of principle and respect for the human race.

Which is The choice we have been given over to make.

Beings invisible to me are giving me no opportunities. He needs to manifest as he is claimed to have done in the Old Testament, at the very least.

OT rules, means OT rules. Is that what you really want? I know I have done things that would require Death as punishment for my sins. What about you?

Again, I need more than that. What you say God has given is insufficient.

More is avaiable if you goto God for it. Nothing is avaiable if you command God to entertain you.

Is it not his purpose to establish a meaningful relationship with men who love him heart and soul?

No.
His purpose is to do whatever He wills.

In that will He has made a provision that allows us the ablity to choose whether or not we want to spend eternity with Him.

He is more powerful and capable than I am. It is upon him to make the effort.

Make a relationship possiable is Him making the effort.

Even if I didn't A/S/K precisely according to scripture, could he not tell that my heart was genuine?

But it's not. By your fruit/unwillingness to bend your knee you know it is not genuine. For if your heart was truly genuine there would be humility, Humility in this instance would have you do whatever God asks. What you have in place of Humility is Pride. Pride says God must personally convince me or worse yet convince the system of education in which I place more stock in than God. What is our greatest command? To love God with all of our being. You love humanity (as per your comment above) and you love your system of peer approved education (as per your comment above) more than you love God. If you love these things More than you love God then your heart is not pure.

There was a period of time when I really wanted what you have, wanted it as much as I've ever wanted anything.

I found that people want to be where I am, they just do not want to take the long and tretrous road to get here. (Not that I am where I need to be, Iam just headed in the right direction) Of which the first part of that journey is to bend that knee.

If your God is real, then all I got was "too bad". Not a single sign, hint, or even subtle encouragement. Just silence.

I think we talked about this before. With you, at some point you were given a small measure of the Holy Spirit, and then you were given an oppertunity to be faithful to what you have been given. You choose to serve self (Go after what you wanted) rather than put it on the line and serve God. So what you had been given began to be taken away. Till there was nothing left.

How can you make a choice about where you want to spend eternity without considering the rewards of heaven and the horrors of hell, when those rewards and horrors are all that defines the difference between the two?

When you see or experience the true Glory of God even for the briefest of moments nothing else matters. (Not even any personal objections you may have about slavery or the nature of the God you serve/crimes against humanity as you pointed out) You are consumed by the desire to be with God.

As satan's example points out, eternity is a long time and at some point Pride will get the better of you. So what is the solution? Put the people who are to make a desision in a place where their hearts have first say in what they decide, which means an inital blindness to the Horrors of Hell and the Glory of God. Otherwise the hearts desision will take a back seat to fear and reward.

If God wanted man to make a choice about him without considering those things, he should have never made the promises and threats.

You mean God should not let us know of the realities of eternity and the desision we are to make?

He should have simply invited you to accept him, if you wanted, with no punishment for saying no and no reward for saying yes, other than the pleasure of his company and presence in your life.

This is all that I see.
The reward is have Jesus over for dinner once a month and the 'punishment' is no punishment at all. It is what people decide they want for themselves when they can not worship a crimes against humanity God. Hell is only a punishiment from the perspective of those who want to be in Heaven. Remember Lucifer and 1/3 of the angels choose Hell over heaven. Why? Because Heaven was the real Hell for them.

Heaven and Hell make it impossible to make that choice without poisoning the well with personal considerations. Does that not make sense?

On the religious view of Heaven and Hell does this. Once you get past the selling points of Heaven or the fear of Hell then you begin to see them for what they are. A place with God and a place without God.

to illustrate this point I use to ask: If for some reason in the past the descriptions for Heaven and Hell were confused (Heaven being a firey pit but God lived there, and Hell was to be what we think to be paradise but no God.) would you still want to goto Heaven (the firey pit) just to be with God?

Once you know the true glory of God, then your surroundings mean nothing. Heaven is where God is no matter what that may look like. For we are made with one purpose to Serve (As sons and daughters) God. When we finally place ourselves in that role we truly can be happy and content.

Or, are the promises of heaven and hell just a trick to weed out everyone who would consider the ramifications of either so that can eliminate them from consideration (as they are thinking of themselves and their own fates more than of God)?

No. God does not need tricks and test to tell Him anything, He already knows.
Any and all test we find in this world are place here for one purpose, that is so we may learn and grow our understanding of our true seleves and to learn and grow in the wisdom of God.

I never needed promises. Even as a Christian, I never gave much thought to the afterlife (I was in my early 20s, who does think much about death in their 20s?). I can say, honestly, that I was not motivated by considerations of the afterlife as much as most Christians I know. The church I attended most spoke a lot more of the here and now, the companionship and the guidance in this life, what I was missing and what I needed. And, what I never ended up getting. You may find it difficult to believe any of this because of my attitude, but the reason I have such an attitude is because, whether or not I did it right, I did it with honest intentions, and I got nothing. So, either intentions mean less to God than following precise instructions, or there's no one on the other end of the line.

I have no doubt in your complete sincerity. You would not be talking about it now if that were not the case.

but understand sincerity is not the whole picture of what God is looking for. Yes sincerity is apart of that picture but there is a greater element that encapsulates the sincerity need and goes much deeper into our selves so we can give God All that He is looking to get from us.

What God wants from us is humility. With in true and complete Humility there is a sincerity that goes well beyond question. True Humility put sincerity and desire into action. This is what God wants and if we can find the faith to ask God for this humilty we will receive it. Just know thatinorder to receive humility we must first give up our pride, either willingly or by trial. It all depends on your heart, on what this process will take. If you do find yourself in the middle in a harsh trial, know God is with you the whole way, even if you can not see Him yet.

Once you been placed in a position of humility, God will lift you up.

I consider it up to me to decide what answers I need and which I do not. And, if God is open to questions, why did he not answer mine in a way he knew I would need them answered?

Maybe because you did not Ask the way He told you to A/S/K.

It takes no strength to submit. Slaves submit.

Indeed, slave submit because they have been broken. We are in a position to elect to be broken. It take tremoundous strength to not only elect this process but to endure it. especially if one has a hard heart.

My only question is the most important one: why does the infinitely-powerful creator of all things feel the need to hide himself from his creation?

To give the creation an oppertunity to make an uninfluenced choice.

Perhaps my atheism is the answer he carved on my heart. As irrational as so many aspects of your god are, maybe your god answered my question with "I never existed".

Perhaps.

[The Grand Nudger]

"IN" would be the first word. You are telling me you can extroplate a date for the word "IN?" What would that date be?

"the beginning" - of course. That sets our upper limit. What follows next? How might we correlate that "beginning" with a number, do you think? You've honestly never taken the time to work this out? Why might that be, do you imagine that the genesis narrative is just too mysterious to be considered...or that maybe you'd just rather not know...something else?